Last month, “60 Minutes” did an alarming report on the $60 billion-a-year Medicare fraud industry. Reporter Steve Kroft began by cautioning “that this story may raise your blood pressure” and “raise some troubling questions about our government’s ability to manage a medical bureaucracy.” The venerable CBS investigative news program spoke with an FBI agent who warned that Medicare fraud had become a “way bigger” problem than the drug trade in Miami.

While the prospect of Crockett and Tubbs kicking down South Florida nursing home doors might not appeal to Hollywood, taxpayers should take this matter very seriously. To put the $60 billion in fraud in perspective, Medicare loses seven times as much money in fraud every year than the combined profits of the 14 health insurance companies on the Fortune 500. (See money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/industries/223/index.html.)